Every week (mostly) I make a 10 minute video of what has gone on in the shop, questions, and such from the past week. In this episode I decided to show what I’ve learned about the bandsaw in the 35 years I’ve owned my machine, a 14” Delta. Hope something in here will help you. Andy

When you say that the blade should set right on the top of the curve (crown) of the tire, what part of the blade are you referring to? I was taught to place the deepest part of the gullet on the wheel’s crown.

When you say that the blade should set right on the top of the curve (crown) of the tire, what part of the blade are you referring to? I was taught to place the deepest part of the gullet on the wheel s crown.

- WoodNSawdust

The idea is for the driving part of the tire to be centered on the mass of the blade … half the blade will overhang the front of the crown and half the back of the crown. So, if you put the gullet on the crown, the blade is a bit back further than I like, especially on a wide blade. I think the blade would tend to cut to the right, looking at it, but the effect may be minimal and not noticed. I use 1/2 inch blades mostly, so my center line is just back of the gullet a bit. I do a lot of wide resawing, and have found that my blade tracks right down the line.

I, too, have the understanding that the gullet is centered on the tire. Someone had posted a video where a sawblade company representative gave a demonstration of using the bandsaw at a major woodworking show, and he demonstrated how the gullet-centered blade would resaw perfectly straight, without the fence having to be skewed.

I had previously been taught to center the entire blade on the tire, but had a heck of a time getting good results resawing due to blade drift. After seeing this video, and adjusting my bandsaw, I get a lot better results, though still not perfect.

I’d say that if you have found something that works, don’t change. Next time I do some resawing I’ll try that method and see how it works for me. Following some advice from the 70’s I used to adjust the fence to get a straight cut. Now I know there is no need to adjust the fence from parallel with the miter slot when all that needs to be done is adjust the tracking to make the blade cut parallel to the fence.